Quote of the day: The 60 Minutes folks remember longtime colleague Ed Bradley (1941-2006)

"He was a big man with a big heart."
--Morley Safer, on last night's tribute to his departed colleague

"Last Thursday," Safer began, "this broadcast lost one of its pillars. Ed Bradley succumbed to CLL, a form of leukemia. Tonight we remember Ed the way we think he'd want us to, as a dedicated reporter who represented the highest standards of this craft, a man who inspired a whole generation of journalists with a calm eloquence that was never an act. He was the genuine article. And so we begin with the extraordinary contribution he made to this broadcast: 26 years of rooting out the truth, exposing the dark side of the human condition, and celebrating the best of it--and having a huge old time along the way."

Bradley's contribution, Safer noted, included "a whole raft of stories that are the bread and butter of 60 Minutes: stories of outrages against the poor, industrial and official criminality, and disregard of human life, stories that became a forum for the powerless."